Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ever since my X'mas break, I got into a habit to sleep around 2.00 in the morning and woke up around 10. My body was so adapted to the holiday hours that even though it's been more than a week since I got back to work, I could only bring myself to sleep around 1:00 am. BUT I needed to get up at 6:30 am for work!

Lack of sleep = lack of energy = slow progress in art making. I can't seem to focus and everything takes twice the time to finish. As a beginner in drawing, I have to do a lots of drafting, color study, brushwork & penwork study before I could start working on the actual drawing. With such major sleep deprivation, it's a wonder that I managed to finish a drawing last night! But I'm not going to post it yet. Instead I'm to post this one.

This is Sarah's gift to me after I sent her my X'mas Giveaway artwork. What a lovely cute drawing and I adore it! Thank you Sarah. :D

That's it for now and excuse me if this post read a bit clumsy. I'm half awake .... zzzzz

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I'm just wondering if this little fella was caught thieving like his red sister. It seemed like the ribbon maker was holding him for ransom!

The drawing was done to fit a project requirement: blue color. While I'm still contemplating if I should enter the art project, I'm using the guideline as a prompt to create drawing.

Before deciding to give drawing a go, I don't really pay much attention to color. But after reading and viewing artists' work, I knew I need to spend more time to study the use of color.

Well, when I started to work on this blue project, I thought it was going to be easy. I planned to use different shades of blue for the ribbons. Problems arrived when my hidden personal preference got in the way.

I realized that I can't stand baby blue. It brought back memory of my mum's obsession about this color when my baby brother was born. Mum would drag me to the shop and bought all the baby blue color wool to make jumpers for him. Everything my baby brother wore when he was an infant was in baby blue. AAAHHH! It drove me nuts!

Then came my discomfort towards navy blue. I spent my entire teenage years wearing navy blue school jackets. I swore that I wouldn't wear anymore navy blue for at least a couple of life time. ;)

I won't say the blues you see in the drawing are the one I like. They're the one I have the least resistance. It is also a reflection of my inability to do ink color mixing at this stage. :(

The scan was unable to show the tiny pale green dots which I placed in the middle of the little fella. At the moment it showed almost all white. Maybe I should consider to make the pale green into a deeper green. The same pale green dots also didn't show up obvious in the actual drawing. The viewer(s) need to get up and be personal to enjoy it. Come to think of it, I quite like the idea about a drawing which gives different perspective to the viewers.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Just so you know I'm still experiencing problem of using my laptop to post comment on other blogs.

Basically, unless the bloggers had set the comment as "pop up" window, otherwise, I'm unable to get the link and post the comment from my laptop. I think it might relate to the security setting of my laptop and unfortunately, I just don't know how to fix it.

For those bloggers who use "embedded" comment (i.e. you click the "comment" link and the comment box appears below your post and other comments), I'm relying the PC at my office to respond.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Rose Thief, ink on paperI'm currently on leave from my part time work and will start again in a week's time. :(

During the break, I practiced to draw by using pen and ink. Reason for choosing this medium is rather simple - I've never used brushes to draw and the idea to use brushes scare the daylight out of me! But half way through I looked at the "creative essentials blocks" (here) on my desk and decided that I should not let fear dominate my drawings.

I bought a couple of brushes and started practicing. As I mentioned before, I've never learn how to draw. Everything that I'm currently doing is by trail and error plus spending days reading art books, art magazines and poreing through art blogs and YouTube for understanding. The process was full of difficulties and at times overwhelming. But somehow, I got through and finished the above drawing. I even followed a project's guideline to create an image by relying heavily on one color (red).

I wouldn't dare to say the drawing is good, but it's the best I could do with my current skill. Hence I'm pleased! :)

What do you think of it, my fellow bloggers and creatives? Any comments is appreciated.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Apart from taking the whole X'mas week off (i.e. doing nothing, except eat, sleep and TV), I've been spending the last week experimenting with pen & ink drawing plus learning how to apply ink wash. It's difficult and tricky. I'm hoping that with more time and practice, I'll get better. And then I would be able to post some of my latest drawings.

Til then ... here are some more pix from my last X'mas Giveaway. Enjoy!